Catalyst
by Secret Nom de Plume
Summary: Did you ever wonder why Draco and Hermione can't stay away from each other? Something keeps bringing these two together. Dramione forever, literally.


Disclaimer: I don't own Ms. Rowling's characters, though I love them. The bizarre beings at the end are mine, but what am I going to do with them?

**Catalyst**

Draco strode into the dungeons below Malfoy Manor stopping only when he reached the group of Deatheaters in the last chamber. His father's summons had come unexpectedly, and Lucius was not known for his patience with his only son.

"Ah, Draco, I have a present for you," Lucius stated, "a task actually. I want you to be the one to end the life of a mudblood that we don't need anymore." He indicated the only figure in the dungeon that wasn't there by choice.

Draco glanced with disgust at the pitiful mess bound to the wall before him. Her wrists were shackled above her head, which hung down limply. Her brown tangled hair was smeared with blood and filth; her face swollen, bloody, and unrecognizable. What could be seen of her body through the rags that she wore was also battered and bruised. Virtually no part of her was untouched by some kind of trauma. "She looks like she's already done for, Father. Why did you need me to finish the job?" The younger Deatheater looked perplexedly at his sire.

"Look closely, Draco, it's Potter's mudblood," he laughed nastily. "The one who used to always beat you in class at school. I thought you might like the pleasure of being the one to finish her off."

"Granger," Draco breathed. He hadn't seen the girl he'd hated since leaving school. The animosity between them had been legendary among their classmates. She was the only person who'd never backed down from him and made no bones about her contempt for him. He'd taken all kinds of shit from his father for letting a mudblood Gryffindor, a female no less, best him. Her mocking laughter was a sound he sometimes heard in his dreams.

"Now who's laughing," Draco muttered as he walked towards her. He pulled a dagger from his belt as he approached her and unceremoniously thrust it into her chest whispering, "Die like a mudblood deserves to." Her head came up in agony and her brown eyes popped open to stare unerringly into his silver ones.

"You," she gasped. Her eyes seemed to glow for a second, and Draco was frozen by something that he saw in them. Suddenly, he began to convulse and he fell to the ground. He distantly heard his father yelling, "What did you do, mudblood?" and felt a sharp pain across his face before being sucked into a whirlwind of visions and feelings.

Lucius stared in horror at the identical mark that had appeared on his son's cheek as he struck the mudblood across the face with the head of his cane.

"Wait!" he commanded as Goyle Sr. aimed his wand at Hermione. "She's linked them together somehow. Don't kill her until we're sure her taint is gone from my son." The Deatheaters looked at the two bodies in confusion.

Images started flashing through Draco's mind with startling clarity:

_...Hermione holding his face in her hands a placing little kisses all over his face saying, "I" (kiss) "Love" (kiss) "You" (kiss)..._

_...McGonagall's class where he smilingly transfigures Hermione's quill into a pink rosebud that blooms before her delighted face..._

_...Hermione's brown eyes staring trustingly into his, despite the pain, as he thrusts into her body for the first time..._

_...Standing with Blaise beside him, as a white clad Hermione makes her way down the aisle towards him with a look of love on her face..._

_...An older version of himself brushing brown curls back from Hermione's sweat-streaked brow as she strained to push their son into the waiting hands of the mediwitch..._

_...The two of them on the platform at King's Cross Station waving goodbye to their youngest as she follows her brothers onto the Hogswart's Express for the first time..._

Dozens of similar pictures flitted through his head. Then suddenly the images became darker and Draco's heart began to beat faster as he took in the new scenes.

_...Knocking down Hermione during third year in retaliation for the slap that she delivered in front of his housemates..._

_...Fifth year, Draco pushing Hermione into the wall and enjoying the tears that form in her eyes when her head makes rough contact with the cold stones..._

_...The two of them screaming and flinging hexes at each other in the hallway before two professors take control of the situation..._

_...Holding his wand and yelling, "Crucio," at the young woman in front of him writhing on the floor..._

_...Hermione bruised and bleeding, shrinking from his touch as he mocks her for being stupid enough to walk the dungeons without her wand..._

_....An older version of himself giving the signal to attack as he watches Hermione Weasley unknowingly leading her team of aurors into an ambush..._

_...A green light engulfing him during the final battle, seeing Hermione's victorious face above her wand..._

Faster and faster the visions of them hurting one another swirled through his head until they became a blur of color. Then a bright white light flashed through his mind and he saw no more. When he opened his eyes, Draco didn't see the dirty stones of the Malfoy dungeons as expected. Instead, all he could see was a vast white nothingness surrounding him. Looking down, he saw he wasn't in his Deatheater regalia, but instead wore only a pair of plain white pants and a white shirt. He could not find his wand.

"Not what you're used to, is it Draco?"

He spun around at the sound of the soft words spoken from behind him. Where he would have sworn there had been nothing before, was a white bench with none other than Hermione Granger seated upon it. She wore a simple white dress and, like him, was barefoot. In contrast to the bleeding wreck that he had last seen in the depths of the Manor, this Hermione appeared to be in perfect health. Her skin was clean and unmarked. Her hair, wild as usual, was clean and loose, giving off the scent of apples.

"What the fuck is going on? Where did you bring me?" he snarled moving towards her menacingly.

She held up her hands in a placating manner. "We haven't gone anywhere, Draco. We're still inside our minds. If you try really hard, you may be able to sense our real bodies."

Draco concentrated and it seemed that he could barely make out the sounds of his father ranting and see dark walls at the edge of his vision. A soft touch on his arm alerted him to his current place and the discordant sounds and sights faded.

"This is just the most neutral place that our minds could come up with so that we could talk. We can't hurt each other, since we're not really here," Hermione told him as he pulled away from her.

"What's going on, mudblood? What was all that stuff that I saw before...coming here?" Draco demanded.

"You didn't get the rest of it back, did you? Those are the lives that we've lived through," she explained. "Our fates have always been tied together. We've been reliving the years since third year over and over again...starting with that slap. There seems to be three possible conclusions to our relationship. One is that you kill me and two is that I kill you. That's what seems to mostly happen. Sometimes though, there's an alternate ending. Somehow, despite all of the obstacles in our way, we..." she falters here for a moment biting her lower lip, "...fall in love and live happily ever after."

"That's the biggest load of shite that I've ever heard, Granger!" he says incredulously. "I don't know what you're trying to do."

"I'm not trying to do anything. I don't even know for sure how I know this, but the knowledge was just there when I woke up here." She looked at him intensely, "You're supposed to be my death or my greatest love and I'm supposed to be yours. We don't have much time, but I think this is where the winner is declared. Then everything is just reset before we start the cycle over."

"This is the craziest...," he started to say more but drifted off when he looked down at his left forearm, his _bare_ left forearm. He put his right hand upon the pristine area where he knew his dark mark had been for the past three years. He didn't understand how it could be gone. He felt different, freer without it. When a small hand appeared upon his own, he looked up bemusedly into deep brown eyes. _When did she become beautiful?_ Hermione was right next to him and he unexpectedly wondered if she tasted like the apples that she smelled like.

Instinctively, he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. It was sweet and soft, her lips parting to allow his tongue entrance into her warm wet mouth. He explored it thoroughly, delighting in the small moan that she emitted. Her arms came about his waist and her hands rested upon his back. He put one hand upon her hip and fisted the other in her hair, deepening the kiss. Their tongues dueled sensually for a long moment until Hermione broke the kiss, sucking on his lower lip at the last instant before letting it go. She looked up into his stormy eyes as though seeking to see his soul.

Draco was amazed and confused about his reaction to that single kiss. He had made out with numerous women since his first kiss as a third year student. He'd fucked dozens of women and never lacked willing bed partners. Yet he couldn't remember any sexual experience ever being that sweet. It made him feel good. Not in just the physical sense, though there was that. It made him feel as though _he_ was good, and he hadn't felt like that in a long time, if ever.

Looking at Hermione, it didn't matter that he was a Deatheater and she was a mudblood. It didn't matter that he had just stabbed her in his family's dungeon. He felt the connection that they had. He smiled at the witch in his arms, breathing in her scent. Draco began to believe that it was possible for him to fall in love with her; that this could be real. His mind recalled some of his visions from earlier. They could have a life together away from the war. They could run. It was mind-boggling and exhilarating at the same time to be even thinking these thoughts.

He opened his mouth to tell her his thoughts, but was distracted by her weight suddenly collapsing against him.

"What is is? What's happening?" he asked her frantically. He began to hear distorted voices and the whiteness around the two seemed to flicker.

"My body is dying, Draco," she said sadly. "This time is ending and you're the victor. Thank you for the kiss, though. Our happy endings are too few and far between." She slipped from his grasp and it seemed like he was being pulled away from her until he could barely see her form in the distance. "We'll try again next time," her weak voice floated back to him.

The noise was getting louder and there was a blinding pain in his head. "No!" he screamed, jerking and struggling against the hands that restrained him. He opened his eyes and saw that he was being held down by two Deatheaters against a cold stone floor. "Get the fuck off me!" he yelled wrenching his body from their grasps.

"Easy, Draco," he heard Lucius say from above him. "That bitch somehow cast a spell on you when you touched her. You've only been out for a few minutes. It's over now and we don't detect any trace of a curse lingering on you."

Draco turned his head and looked at Hermione's body hanging so silent and still from the shackles that held her to the wall. He saw his dagger protruding from her chest and knew that he had killed her. He stumbled to his feet and rushed out of the dungeons, ignoring the questioning voices of the others. Once outside in his mother's gardens, Draco dropped to his knees and put his hands to his head.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"All right, Clios, you win again," said Vanderor. "Your boy is clearly the victor this time though my girl, Hermione, was strong. If she had withstood the torture longer, she might have broken free and gotten to him. That happened one time, remember?"

"Pure luck that time, my dear. I've won the most," Clios said smugly. "My Draco has a vicious streak in him that makes him really want to kill your girl. You were right though. These two make a much more interesting competition than the Potter-Riddle game we originally wanted."

"I knew they would, as soon as I saw that slap! What a great catalyst for play!"

"Why did you give them memories of their past lives?"

"I don't know. I just wanted to see what they'd say or do with that knowledge during intermission. I still don't know how they manage to play to a draw sometimes. Everything is set up so that one of them _has_ to kill the other," Vanderor pondered. "Yet in some cycles, they go for decades without harming one another. Sometimes they even live together and make offspring, until one of them dies naturally! "

"Maybe," Clios recommended sagely, "you should set a time limit and reset the game if there isn't a clear victor in sight. It's your game and your decision. Do you want to start again now, since this one is finished?"

"Of course," Vanderor agreed, "Let me wrap this up." He gestured down at the blond in the garden, who takes out his wand, points it at himself and slumps to the ground in a flash of green light. "All set now."

_Third Year:_

_(CRACK) Draco couldn't believe that Granger had just done that. Hermione could barely believe that she had just done that. The two stared at each other, the sounds of the Gryffindors' cheers and the Slytherins' angry rumbles fading away for a few seconds. In that short time, both knew that they weren't done with each other, not by a long shot. Oh no, they were just beginning..._

_Fin__  
_


End file.
